The Nokia N91 and global domination
0 Comments Published by bill hilton on Saturday, September 02, 2006 at 9:06 PM.
I finally got my hands on a Nokia N91 the other day, courtesy of Chris Pilanka. It's the cell phone that Nokia bosses seem to think is going to quickly lead them to global (if not galactic) domination by, ooh, this time next week.
In case you didn't know, The devious Finns have launched in Nseries with lots of multimedia widgetry. The N91 has got a 2 megapixel camera, an MP3 player and four gigs of storage space. The idea is that every digital camera maker in the word will go bust and the N91 and its siblings will have such a huge impact on the MP3 market that iPod sales will slide and Steve Jobs will ride backwards to Helsinki on a reindeer just to beg for a slice of the Scandinavian action.
Er, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. Nobody is going to buy a mobile phone like this as their sole camera - not now 8 megapixels are pretty much standard. (Not that anyone can tell the difference between 8 megapix and 2 megapix, but as in all things there's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses schtick going on here). Equally, as far as being an MP3 player goes, cell phone manufacturers have got some way to go before their products acquire cachet of coolness required to penetrate the vital twentysomething hipster market, which is still in love with the cool lines of the iPod.
Where the Nseries is going to hit hard, I predict, is with kids and students. As far as school-age teens are concerned, the N91 offers more scope for alleviating boredom and/or causing classroom chaos than any other previous cell phone.
The N91 is light, slim and sexy, though it doesn't quite have the high-grade back pocket slippability of an iPod. The sound quality is great, especially if you use it with good earpieces (Nokia recommends Bose and Sennheiser earpieces, apparently). The only thing you shouldn't do is try to connect the thing to your Mac. I'd heard the bad rumours, so I gave it a go - and yes, within thirty seconds both phone and Mac had crashed. It seems crazy that Nokia still haven't sorted this out. Macs are no longer a minority technology. It does suggest, however, that they're not really pursuing that 21-35 market, where Mac penetration is at its highest.
Nokia has also included a web browser, WiFi connectivity and loads of other nick-nacks and widgetry. Apparently, you can even use it to make phone calls. Now that's what I call revolutionary.
In case you didn't know, The devious Finns have launched in Nseries with lots of multimedia widgetry. The N91 has got a 2 megapixel camera, an MP3 player and four gigs of storage space. The idea is that every digital camera maker in the word will go bust and the N91 and its siblings will have such a huge impact on the MP3 market that iPod sales will slide and Steve Jobs will ride backwards to Helsinki on a reindeer just to beg for a slice of the Scandinavian action.
Er, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. Nobody is going to buy a mobile phone like this as their sole camera - not now 8 megapixels are pretty much standard. (Not that anyone can tell the difference between 8 megapix and 2 megapix, but as in all things there's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses schtick going on here). Equally, as far as being an MP3 player goes, cell phone manufacturers have got some way to go before their products acquire cachet of coolness required to penetrate the vital twentysomething hipster market, which is still in love with the cool lines of the iPod.
Where the Nseries is going to hit hard, I predict, is with kids and students. As far as school-age teens are concerned, the N91 offers more scope for alleviating boredom and/or causing classroom chaos than any other previous cell phone.
The N91 is light, slim and sexy, though it doesn't quite have the high-grade back pocket slippability of an iPod. The sound quality is great, especially if you use it with good earpieces (Nokia recommends Bose and Sennheiser earpieces, apparently). The only thing you shouldn't do is try to connect the thing to your Mac. I'd heard the bad rumours, so I gave it a go - and yes, within thirty seconds both phone and Mac had crashed. It seems crazy that Nokia still haven't sorted this out. Macs are no longer a minority technology. It does suggest, however, that they're not really pursuing that 21-35 market, where Mac penetration is at its highest.
Nokia has also included a web browser, WiFi connectivity and loads of other nick-nacks and widgetry. Apparently, you can even use it to make phone calls. Now that's what I call revolutionary.
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